Millions of birds die each year at communication towers

More than 6 million birds die every year as they migrate from the United States and Canada to Central and South America, according to a new study published in the open access journal PLoS ONE. The birds are killed by the 84,000 communication towers that dot North America and can rise nearly 610 meters (2,000 feet) into the sky.

Researchers found that the taller the tower the greater the threat, and the tallest 1.9 percent of towers account for 71 percent of the mortalities. The birds are generally killed not by running into the tower itself, but by getting caught in the dozens of cables that prop up the thin freestanding structures. During bad weather, the birds are pushed down by cloud cover and fly at lower altitudes. The clouds also remove navigation cues such as stars, leaving only the red lights of the towers.

"One of the things this country has been great about is saying we care about not losing species on our watch. With these towers, we are killing birds in an unnatural way. This is senseless." Lead author Travis Longcore of the University of Southern California

In the presence of the solid red lights, the birds are unable to get out of their spell. They circle the tower and run into the big cables holding it up. Towers with blinking red lights, on the other hand, cause fewer deaths. The authors estimate that replacing the steady-burning lights with blinking lights on the roughly 4,500 towers greater than 150 meters tall could reduce mortality by about 45 percent, or about 2.5 million birds.

The study also recommends that businesses share towers to reduce their number and build more freestanding towers to reduce the need for guy wires. (USC)

The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service estimates that up to 50 million birds are killed each year at communications towers. Window crashes, by comparison, kill between 100 and 900 million birds a year, and are still by far the largest human-related cause of bird death. The aviation warning lights on the towers disrupt the birds’ celestial navigation and draw them into a halo of light. The birds then become trapped and circle endlessly, colliding with each other and the tower, or eventually dropping to the ground from exhaustion.

At least 231 species have been affected, with neotropical migrants making up a large proportion of all species killed. WatchList species killed in significant number include the Wood Thrush, Golden-winged Warbler, Cerulean Warbler, and Seaside Sparrow.

Latest articles

The center of Tropical Storm "Cristobal" will move northward over the central Gulf of Mexico today and tonight (LT), and will be near the northern Gulf of Mexico coast on Sunday, June 7, 2020. Its center is forecast to move inland across Louisiana late...

The unprecedented threat of desert locust to food security and livelihoods continues in the Horn of Africa and it is also very likely to spread to southwest Asia and perhaps West Africa, according to a situation update by the UN Food and Agriculture Organization...

Farmers in Northern Ireland are facing the worst drought since 1976. It came after an unusually dry spell and the sunniest spring ever, with records dating back to 1929. Allan Chambers, a member of the UFU's Seeds and Cereals Committee, said the lack of rainfall...

Russian President Vladimir Putin has declared a state of emergency in Norilsk, Siberia, on June 4, 2020, following a 20 000 tonne-oil spill in the Arctic Circle. The World Wildlife Fund (WWF) described the disaster as the second largest in modern Russian history...

Severe Cyclonic Storm "Nisarga" caused extensive damage and killed four people after it made historic landfall over Maharashtra on June 3, 2020. Meanwhile, the financial capital Mumbai was spared as the storm changed its course. The India Meteorological...

The hypoxic area or "dead zone"-- an area of reduced oxygen level which kills marine life-- in the Gulf of Mexico is forecast to be approximately 10 800 square km (6 700 square miles) larger than the long-term average of about 8 700 square km (5 400 square...

Severe thunderstorms ripped through parts of mid-Atlantic on Wednesday, June 3, 2020, leaving at least three people dead and more than half a million people without power. On Thursday morning, June 4, the National Weather Service (NWS) confirmed the event was a...

A strong earthquake registered by the USGS as M6.4 hit off the coast of Halmahera, Indonesia at 08:49 UTC (17:49 LT) on June 4, 2020. The agency is reporting a depth of 106.9 km (66 miles). EMSC is reporting M6.4 at a depth of 105 km (65 miles). The epicenter was...

Steamboat Geyser in Wyoming is the world's tallest active geyser, which sometimes blasts water over 90 m (300 feet) into the air. At times, the geyser stays quiet for years then abruptly bursts back to life-- a behavior that has been puzzling scientists. A new...

New activity/unrest was reported for 3 volcanoes from May 27 to June 2, 2020. During the same period, ongoing activity was reported for 13 volcanoes. New activity/unrest: Cleveland, Chuginadak Island (USA) | Ijen, Eastern Java (Indonesia) | Karymsky, Eastern...

Autumn 2020 in New South Wales, Australia, was the state's coldest and wettest since 2012, the Bureau of Meteorology (BOM) confirmed in a seasonal climate summary issued on June 1, 2020. Daytime temperatures were below to very much below average for NSW, except...

Up to 86 714 lightning strikes were recorded in the entire Washington state, U.S., on Saturday, May 30, 2020-- about 62 percent of the state's yearly lightning average. It occurred during a severe weather event described by the National Weather Service (NWS) as...

A strong earthquake registered by the USGS as M6.8 hit Antofagasta, Chile at 07:35 UTC (03:35 UTC) on June 3, 2020. The agency is reporting a depth of 96 km (59 miles). EMSC is reporting M6.8 at a depth of 87 km (54 miles) The epicenter was located 48.2 km (29.9...

Severe Cyclonic Storm "Nisarga" made historic landfall over Maharashtra, India just south of Alibagh at 07:30 UTC on June 3, 2020, with maximum sustained wind speeds up to 110 km/h (70 mph) and gusts to 120 km/h (75 mph). The landfall process will be...

A devastating hailstorm lashed parts of northern Portugal on Sunday, May 31, 2020, causing more than 20 million dollars' worth of damage to this year's fruit harvest. Areas in the north, including around Viseu and Fundao, Castelo Branco, Belmonte, Covilha,...

Tropical Storm "Cristobal" formed at 15:15 UTC on June 2, 2020, as the earliest third named storm in the Atlantic, beating the previous record set by Tropical Storm "Colin" which formed on June 5, 2016. Cristobal formed from remnants of Tropical...

"Here's to the crazy ones, the misfits, the rebels, the troublemakers, the round pegs in the square holes… the ones who see things differently -- they're not fond of rules… You can quote them, disagree with them, glorify or vilify them, but the only thing you can't do is ignore them because they change things… they push the human race forward, and while some may see them as the crazy ones, we see genius, because the ones who are crazy enough to think that they can change the world, are the ones who do."